Health, power, and global networks: the historical evolution of medical logistics and its geopolitical impact in the twentieth century: From the transportation of supplies to international health security, health diplomacy, and global inequality
Year: 2027
Type: article
Abstract: This study examined the evolution of medical logistics networks throughout the 20th century and analyzed how their organizational models influenced international health security, health diplomacy, and the persistence of global inequalities. A qualitative, historical-hermeneutic methodology was employed, applied to a corpus of academic documentary sources selected for their peer review, open access, bibliographic traceability, and thematic relevance. The analysis linked the circulation of vaccines, medications, technologies, expert knowledge, and epidemiological information to the power relations established among states, multilateral organizations, cooperation agencies, funders, and territories in the Global South. The findings showed that medical logistics went beyond the operational function of transporting and distributing supplies: it constituted an infrastructure capable of setting priorities, managing risks, building institutional capacities, and defining differentiated conditions of access. Furthermore, they demonstrated that health cooperation coexisted with technological dependencies, concentrations of productive capacity, and geopolitical hierarchies. In conclusion, the study argued that care networks also functioned as mechanisms of authority and security, whose benefits and restrictions were distributed unequally among populations and territories.
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7223148990